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January 24, 2008

Diocese union fires back

Mark Guydish

Contending the Diocese of Scranton has "place the viability of Catholic education in our region in extreme jeopardy," the union seeking  to represent Catholic School teachers fired a stinging salvo at the diocese rejection of unionization and vowed to fight back.

"The diocese announcement if full of lies, including the concept that these regional boards had any say in turning the union down," said Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic School Teachers Michael Milz. "Are we going to accept this? Absolutely not."

Milz called the diocesan decision to create a uniform employee relations program for all school teachers and thus reject the union's effort to represent teachers in collective bargaining "union busting of the worst kind." The union issued a detailed response, available here, on it's Web site, www.sdact.com

The response emphasizes the Catholic church's repeated support of organized labor through the decades and cites an article from the July 1, 2007, issue of the Catholic Light that said the union had to seek recognition through a secret ballot among employees. The union was never given that chance. The union response also quotes Diocesan school policy no. 417: "Catholic social teaching strongly supports the rights of lay teachers to organize and to bargain collectively."

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